


a sunset sinks gold at the horizon (moments awaiting a sky drenched indigo)

by Gammarad



Category: Heart of Gold - Sharon Shinn
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:49:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28101201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/pseuds/Gammarad
Summary: or,How I Met Your Father.The stories young Luri's mother tells about that so long ago time before she was born reveal the ways things have changed and also stayed the same after the fallout from the crisis between Inrhio and Geldricht. Luri's mostly interested in how her parents fell in love. Even though (or maybe especially because) it wasn't with each other.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	a sunset sinks gold at the horizon (moments awaiting a sky drenched indigo)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fawatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawatson/gifts).



Bedtime was when Julitta would tell her daughter her own story, piece by piece. Some pieces were not at all age appropriate.

Lurini was the high-caste granddaughter Julitta's mother had her heart set on since Julitta was days old, and had given up on when Julitta reached thirty without the slightest interest from any appropriate man, let alone a son of the Higher Hundred. And yet, here Lurini was, eight years old and precocious, brilliant and sweet and the light of Julitta's life. 

The second light, after Melina, who often stood in the doorway, listening to Luri's bedtime story. When Melina was in-country with her children and jahla lover, anyway -- almost half of every year. A high-caste high-powered woman like Melina could get away with that. 

"In the city," Julitta began, "many years ago, a young woman named Cerisa Daylen convinced the city government to allow her to open a laboratory for biological research, fully funded and charged with protecting the health of all city residents. That meant not just us indigo, but the gulden and the albinic races as well. At that time, it was controversial. A lot of people didn't even believe the gulden were fully human."

"That's silly. There were grown-ups who didn't believe that?"

"Even so. Before you were born, Luri." 

The child nodded. Before she was born was unimaginably long ago to her, even if it was barely yesterday to her mother and honorary aunt. Julitta shot her love a bright smile, and Melina returned it from her post at the threshold. 

Julitta melted inside. The insouciance in the way Melina leaned against the jamb sent a signal right to her core. With an effort she put those thoughts aside until after her daughter was safely asleep, and returned to her tale.

* * *

Another night, Julitta told Luri about how Melina had gone to the city. "Your aunt Melina was so bright, she started two years earlier at City College than the rest of the girls her age. She was the youngest to graduate from the medical research program Cerisa Daylen had designed, and Daylen was impressed with her. For her part, Melina was full of admiration, eager to research the topics Daylen suggested in her laboratory hours, excited to show off her results to Daylen even before showing her teachers, and they agreed that in Melina's second year at the college that she'd be working for Daylen at the Biolab in the city after graduation.

"But once Melina started working there, she didn't like Daylen as much. Daylen was a mean boss. Very mean to all Melina's new friends at the lab, and a little bit mean even to Melina. Their days of being each other's favorite teacher and student were over. Now they were employee and upper management and that was all, even though Daylen's mother and Melina's grandmother were close friends."

"Why do you call her Daylen instead of Cerisa?" Luri asked, leaning up on an elbow.

Julitta wasn't sure. "She did something terrible, and she died before you were born," she said. That was a part of why, but she didn't know how to explain the connection. 

The bare fact of Cerisa Daylen's notoriety seemed enough to mollify Luri, who relaxed back into her pillows. "Go on, mom."

Julitta smiled at her daughter's casual commanding tone. She probably shouldn't encourage it, but she couldn't help herself; it reminded her of Melina. "Melina made friends at her new job. At City College she'd got used to working with all castes and races of people, and the mid-caste men and women and the albino and gulden men at the Biolab were all the smartest, best biological scientists in the city. They all became friends. 

"Most especially, Melina was friends with two gulden men, Pakt and Colt. Pakt was an old man, Daylen's deputy who supervised all the lab workers while Daylen spent her time on politics and another project. Pakt was the one who taught Daylen a lot of what she knew. He had studied biological science in the Gulden lands, where most of the technology the Biolab used had come from. 

"Melina had indigo friends, too, of course. There was a woman called Varella and a man called Nolan. Varella still works at the Biolab with Melina, you know that? She's in charge of a department now. The lab used to be much smaller, when Melina first worked there." Julitta could see Luri getting bored. She had to move on to the interesting part of this story. "It was when Melina had only been working at the Biolab for a few weeks that she met me." Luri's eyes went from sleepy slits to wide-open alertness. "She came to the Central Government Science Library where I worked." 

"And she took you away from all that," Luri mumbled.

"Not so fast." Julitta laughed. "The minute I saw her, I was mesmerized. She was the first woman I'd seen with her hair all cut off, and she was gorgeous." Julitta had been raised to be chaste with eligible men, to save herself for marriage, and to flirt with only the most proper and desirable bachelors. She'd been very good at the first two, and terrible at the third. 

She'd known about jahla girls, of course, but it hadn't occurred to her that she would like to be one until she met Melina. All the times she'd dismissed her friends' complaints about how difficult it was to wait when boys were so eager and attractive took on a new and simpler meaning. "Once I found the books she needed, I sent a message up to the lab. I was so nervous waiting for her to come down and get them. 

"Our hands touched when I gave her the pile of textbooks, and the look on my face must have given away my feelings. Right there, over five dusty volumes of bioscience, Melina asked me to have dinner with her. And I said yes."

It wasn't what Julitta had meant to tell Luri about that night, but it seemed to make her daughter happy. "And Melina introduced you to Dad?" she asked.

"We'll get to that," Julitta said. Just as she did, Melina arrived at the doorway. Julitta looked up. "Just about done here," she said, kissing Luri's forehead and rising.

* * *

After that story, Julitta followed Melina to bed. Lying next to her jahla lover, she said, "Do you think it would be all right for me to skip telling her about the real first time I met her father? I don't think it counts."

"You tell her however you want."

"I know, but, Melina. I want to tell her about him and that gulden man. Maybe she's too young?"

"She'll understand the parts of it she's ready for. Don't coddle her. Luri's got a lot of strength and security. She's almost as smart as I was at her age, and not nearly as spoiled." Melina laughed and kissed Julitta's collarbone. 

"Mmm, that feels good." 

Julitta was nearly asleep when she remembered the other thing she wanted to ask Melina. "I nearly forgot. Luri asked when her father would be visiting her again? Or when we would take her to see him? I know he's busy."

"Devon and I will be going back to the city next week. We could take Luri with us so they can visit? She can stay the week and come back home with us after, if you like." Melina twirled a strand of Julitta's hair around her finger. "I'll miss you terribly, but you should stay and look after Nora and Falon, all right? I always feel so much better if you're watching them than leaving them with the staff."

And Julitta's husband preferred that she not be there during his time with Devon. That was the unspoken part of Melina's request. Always unspoken, but never forgotten.

* * *

A few nights after Melina and Devon returned from the city, Luri had a question at bedtime. "Tonight, could you tell me about how Aunt Melina met Uncle Devon instead?"

"I can," Julitta said. "In fact, it's part of the story of how I met your father. In time-honored tradition, their uncles arranged a meeting between them." Julitta couldn't remember the exact date, but she knew the year, because it was the year before Melina married. It had been -- spring? She wasn't sure. But for a story, good enough. "In the springtime, five years before you were born, her uncle received a call from one of his old friends. The friend's nephew had called off his engagement." 

"My fiancee was the one who called it off," Devon's voice said from behind Julitta. "Apologies for the interruption. I was walking by and overheard."

"You tell it," Luri said eagerly. "It's all right, isn't it?" She looked beseechingly to Julitta.

"Only if you want to, Devon," Julitta told him. 

He nodded. His fine features lit up in a broad smile. "If Luri asks it, of course I will." Devon had longer hair than Julitta; unusually for an indigo man, he wore it down past his shoulders. There had been criticism before he and Melina married, as the style was typical for gulden men, but contrasted with Melina's shaved head, high-caste society had decided the couple had strange taste in hairstyles in common and looked past it. He pulled a lock of hair out of his eyes and tucked it behind his ear as he sat down next to Julitta on Luri's bed.

"Thank you, Uncle Devon," Luri said, before Julitta needed to remind her. 

A polite child for once. Julitta smiled at her daughter. "A much needed break for me. Thank you both."

"Why did your fiancee break up with you?" Luri asked.

Devon looked to Julitta with a quirked half smile. "We weren't suited. She wanted a man who was romantic with her, who had fallen in love with her."

"Were you in love with someone else?" Luri's eyes were wide.

"Not then. I had never wanted to --" Julitta could see Devon thinking of how to say this in a way appropriate to an eight year old. She might tell Luri age-inappropriate stories, but he was unwilling to be so improper. "-- kiss a woman, to take her hand and declare my passion for her." Like men did in a lot of stories Luri loved. "I didn't think I was made to feel the passions of falling in love, not with her or anyone else."

"Aunt Melina had. She was in love with my mother." Luri squeezed her mother's hand as she snuggled into her bed, her eyes half closing.

"She still is in love with Julitta," Devon said, perfectly matter of fact. "That was why we were suitable. She didn't need me to love her, she had her love already."

"But what about you? Weren't you sad if no one loved you?" Luri sounded more mischievous than sad when she asked this, though she was sleepy, too: the words came out between yawns. Julitta nibbled her lower lip. She wasn't sure if Devon might regret agreeing to tell her a story if Luri went on like this.

"In some ways it might have been better if I had been right about myself, if I'd been destined never to find love." Devon rested his chin in his hand. "But it didn't make me sad, no. I liked Melina as soon as we met. The two of us were very much of a kind. We might not be in love with each other, but we love each other in our own way." 

"And it made their mothers very happy." Julitta couldn't resist adding that.

"Mother was ecstatic," Devon admitted. 

Luri's eyes were closed. Julitta hoped she had fallen asleep, but she hadn't. She was only thinking hard. "So you _did_ fall in love with someone?" Luri asked, sitting up in bed, eyes wide open again. 

"Lie back down," Julitta told her. "That is a story for another time." 

Lumi pouted, but did as she was told. 

Devon followed Julitta out of her room. "Is she old enough to hear the answer to that question?" he asked once they were out of range of Luri hearing.

Julitta had been wondering that herself. "I think she's old enough to know what she can and can't tell people about our family," she said. "And if she's not, it's not like she doesn't see what she sees." 

He half-shrugged, his hair falling back into his face with the motion. "She knows, but until an adult says it, it's not real to her," he said. "It's like everything else she imagines. Suspended between truth and mistaken impression."

"You live there a lot," Julitta said, not unsympathetically. 

"There are worse places."

* * *

One night Julitta finally told Luri about the scandal involving her father. It was after that first meeting, the brief one when Julitta had been uncomfortably and superficially socializing with Melina's co-workers. He had barely registered -- she recalled his name, and general appearance, but nothing to distinguish him from the other indigo men who worked in the Biolab.

Melina had told Julitta about the scandal on the same day she'd told Julitta about her engagement. It had been a form of procrastination. "It doesn't seem that long ago I was fighting with Colt about jahla girls," Melina said, "getting him to face that hypocrisy of his, and now it's my turn. I need to change," she said. Julitta had asked why. "Because I can see where I went wrong. Pakt was wrong, of course. It's not because men just want whatever sex is available. And Colt was obviously wrong. But I was wrong, too. It should be no more wrong for indigo men to fall in love than gulden men or indigo women."

And that was what Julitta had always tried to teach Luri. But it was hard, when even their own families didn't see it the same way. "Around the same time Melina and Devon met, Luri, there was a Gulden man who your father had feelings for," she said. "In gulden society, it's not too uncommon for two men to fall in love. It almost never happens with indigo men, but it can. And your father had been living with his friends in a gulden household for several months. He started to see there were possibilities for him that he hadn't considered when he lived in an apartment alone, or before that when he lived in his mother's household."

"He lives in an apartment alone in the city now," Luri pointed out. 

"It wouldn't be fair to impose on his gulden friends forever, Luri." 

"And he has the lady Lane to visit and fix his dishes. I saw her fixing one." Luri was talking about the gulden woman who kept house for her father, who claimed he was too busy at the Biolab to take care of his own home. It bothered Julitta a little, but she didn't have a say in how he conducted his city life and, she told herself, wouldn't have wanted to have one.

"It was already a little scandalous at that time for any indigo to have feelings for a gulden." Julitta was massively understating, but "a little scandalous" was beginning to be true, and she hoped by the time Luri was fully aware of such things, it'd be even less. "It was a big scandal because they were both men. Indigo men simply never did such a thing as start to fall in love with another man, or so most people thought." 

Luri pouted. "People didn't know anything in the old days."

"There's always a lot more for everyone to learn," Julitta said, trying to keep herself from agreeing. She knew what Luri had said wasn't true, wasn't even reasonable, and it'd be poor mothering to give in to the temptation. "But they knew a great many things that you will learn as you get older." 

"I don't want to learn stupid things, mom!"

"Hey, quiet down, Luri. You'll wake Nora." Melina stood in the doorway. 

"Sorry, Aunt Melina," Luri whispered. "Who was the gulden man? What was he named?"

Melina shook her head. That, at least, wasn't common knowledge, and it was best if it stayed that way. 

"It was over before you were born, and not worth telling except that because of it, your father became someone none of his family's peers wanted their daughters to marry." Julitta smiled at this, more than she knew she ought to. "That was why Melina thought his mother might be willing to let him marry someone like me."

"So she introduced you? Is that how you met him?"

"Not quite," Melina said. "I didn't think of it right away. It was when he came to my house in town to tell me about Nolan's new venture, and Devon happened to be there with me."

Julitta put her hand on Luri's back and turned her toward Melina. She was very pleased to let Melina tell this part, since it was something she'd not been there for. At the time, she'd still been fighting her jealousy of Devon. Now she felt like it had been completely irrational of her to feel that way, but at the time, she'd been desperately afraid she'd lose Melina. After all, Melina had said for years that their relationship was temporary, that when she married it'd be over. 

"Your father explained that two of our former colleagues, Nolan and Colt, were opening a private lab of their own. It came as a complete surprise to me, but I can't say why. In hindsight it was obvious. Neither of them could work for the government, not ever again, but they were both so good at the work, it would have been a shame for them not to return to it. And with demand rising for cures for all sorts of illnesses, they'd have plenty of business.

"And the whole time your father and I talked, Devon was staring at him with such a strange expression. When Hiram finished telling me the news, I introduced them." Melina paused, made eye contact with Julitta, then went on in a lighter tone. "That was when I got the idea that his mother might let him marry Julitta. That I wanted that to happen. I thought he'd be a good addition to the family."

"I'm glad," Luri said sleepily. "I like being part of the family." 

"I like you being part of my family, too, Luri," Melina said. "Sleep well and dream happy dreams."

She turned out the light as she drew Julitta out of the room. "I think that's the end of that story," Julitta whispered.

"And the beginning of a better one," Melina agreed, and kissed her.

**Author's Note:**

> I did more world-building than fit into the story. 
> 
> In this future, basically Melina's got Cerisa's job and Hiram's got Pakt's. So he has to be in the office a lot more than she does - he's in charge of day to day, while she's doing big picture. Which means he lives in town, and Melina partially lives both in town and in country.
> 
> Nolan and Colt started their own private biolab and whatever the official government one can't handle, they do on contract. Plus they do some work for private customers. They're very strict about following the laws of Inrhio regarding bioresearch. They have to be, they keep being audited _for some reason_.
> 
> Hiram got a major crush on Sochin while they were living at Pakt's. It seemed like he might have had it before that, but at that point it definitely got more intense. But Sochin was not at all interested that he could tell, so nothing ever happened, just Hiram copying Sochin's attitudes and sucking up to him generally. 
> 
> Devon is an original character and I had fun making him up, too. I could probably write an entire fic about him but that'd be far too self-indulgent. This story had to focus on Melina and I love her a lot, and want her to be happy, which was a big motivation for the whole thing.
> 
> I had a great time coming up with ideas for this story! So glad I got assigned to write for you.


End file.
